Shelter From the Storm
by GenericDude
Summary: What sort of event causes a friend to become more than just a friend? Shovel Knight recalls one of his earliest moments with Shield Knight, in which a moment of adversity finally melts the ice between them and brings them closer together. Shovel Knight/Shield Knight, set as a prequel of sorts to 'Catch Her'.
1. Chapter 1

Shelter From the Storm

Part 1

As a knight from the Order of the Shovel, I was not very accustomed to being accompanied on my travels. My missions and orders were always given to me, and only me. So you'll understand when I tell you that when I received a mission to meet with a member of the neighbouring Order of the Shield, I was perplexed.

Of course, it brought me to my now beloved, Shield Knight. A young prodigy from her respective order, she was the second part of an experimental process in which the two orders would pair knights to perform valiant duties together. Nowadays both Shield Knight and I now wander as independent knights, fighting and journeying for our own adventurous and noble causes (with some treasure hunting on the side).

However, Shield Knight and I did not fall for each other straight away. It did take some time. And if you're sitting comfortably, then let me recall the night when things between us changed from knights-in-arms…to just a little more.

* * *

We had been in each other's service for a month. As members of our respective Orders, we were to take upon ourselves missions and adventures assigned jointly by both of our higher ups. Our initial meetings were…frosty, I must admit. My first impressions of this young woman clad to the nines in crimson armour, wielding two grossly mismatched shields were that of disbelief. How were you supposed to fight with two shields? Conversely, she always muttered about why I fought with a shovel, against the conventional sword that normal knights use.

And we both questioned why we were placed together. Neither Shield Knight nor I ever questioned the decisions that our Orders made, or the missions that they assigned to us. I understood that the pairing system was something of a trial system, but even then, shovels and shields? Understandably, this confusion, as well as the bullishness to which we approached our respective duties, led to a lot of arguments early in our partnership.

One particular day, in which we were busy travelling to the frozen wastes of the south in search of a lost contingent of Order of the Shovel, we were having one of these arguments.

"I just don't get it. Why do you use a shovel? Why not a sword?"

Once again, Shield Knight was questioning my choice of weapon.

"Oh, Shield Knight, you fool" I responded, my patience already thin from the constant questioning of my glorious shovel. "Swords can only do so much. With my trusty shovel, I can dispatch all my enemies with ease, and more! The wide blade allows me to deflect projectiles and inflict blunt force trauma for less pressing foes…"

"…And dig things" Shield Knight interrupted. I looked across to her as we were walking; her glazed eyes showed that she was unimpressed. Personally, I didn't seem very impressed with her shields. All defence, no offence.

"All defence, no offence" I said to her, my thoughts literally coming out of my mouth. "How are you supposed to dispatch of foes when all you can do is hide? Doesn't seem very knightly to me"

"Do not disrespect me, Shovel Knight" Shield Knight warned with a sigh. "The Order of the Shield would not take your comments lightly…nor would I"

"I'm very scared…not"

"We'll see, Shovel Knight. We'll see"

Mildly annoyed, we walked in silence for a while. But I couldn't resist. Shield Knight having the last word bothered me. It always bothered me.

"I don't see what your problem is" I said to her, still walking through the wooded forest around us. As I gazed up to the sparse canopy above, I chose my words carefully. "It was not my choice that I was to be positioned with you to do our Orders' bidding. I am simply following my oaths and giving my service. Why does this warrant constant mocking from you?"

"Well I could ask you the same, Shovel Knight" Shield Knight argued back. "You do not spare your words when your criticise my use of shields, despite the fact that you have seen me fight with them. Successfully, I might add. Therefore, good sir, your words about my Order and weapons of choice are also ill-warranted"

An awkward silence hung among us. I stopped for a minute and glared at Shield Knight through my helmet. My blood boiled a little, as it always would when an argument broke out, and I wondered whether I should just clobber the girl with my shovel and say she got lost once the mission had been complete. No doubt, she stood and glared at me with her frosty eyes, wondering whether I could be done away with just as easily. We both stared at each other, trying to win this wordless face-off.

Eventually, I gave up. We weren't going to complete this mission by staring at each other. I continued to walk on past her, and before long, she followed. Every argument ended like this. I begun to wonder whether we would ever have an argument that would go past the 'icy stare' stage.

* * *

Before long, the sun was hiding away behind the mountains, taking all its light with it. Blue skies became black clouds dimmed the moonlight, shedding us no light on our path. It was time to stop for the night.

"I'll go collect some wood, you find some flint to start a fire with"

I am incredibly accustomed to sleeping in the woods; inns are nice, but there is nothing better than living and resting upon the land that bore me. The many cold nights I have slept under the stars always brought me close to Mother Nature and her endless beauty. It was the part of the day I could always cherish.

Unfortunately Shield Knight didn't share the sentiment. Ever since day one, she huffed away every time we had to set up the campfire. She was excellent at hunting, throwing her small shield like a discus of sorts, snaring her prey and bringing a variety of different animals to the campfire to cook and eat. Despite it, she never really did it with a smile, or great enthusiasm. In contrast, I would throw all my energy and give my greatest jaunty run in striking hefty branches from their trees and carrying them back to the campsite. I made great fires: tall, warm and accommodating. My best ones were able to keep their heat until the daybreak of the next morning.

It sounds like I had a nightmare with Shield knight thus far, but surprisingly, once the food had been cooked and the campfire established, things always seemed to calm down a little between us, and we were able to talk and share stories of our pasts. Myself, a veteran knight of the Order of the Shovel. Shield Knight, a new recruit of the Order of the Shield. As we sat eating our food (I always slipped mine through the slit of my helmet, nobody would dare see my face!), we engaged in one of our long, more civil conversations about our lives.

"…So I was the highest ranking new recruit from the Order of the Shield's new batch of soldiers" Shield Knight explained, biting into her cooked boar. Swallowing, she continued as I listened on intently. "You can imagine at the very beginning that I got a lot of stick for being a girl. But once they armed me and put me in a ring with the rest of them, they didn't stand a chance. There's one thing you learn about being discriminated all your life, and that's to get a tough skin and rock hard determination. I never give up unless I absolutely have to"

"You are rather the exception" I said. "I personally feel women have the same potential as men in terms of combat. I believe the Order of the Shovel could benefit greatly from female recruits. But the stigma is just too great these days; so many women are scared to sign up as recruits. I've been in the Order for five years now, and it's disheartening to see that of all of my superiors are men"

"One day…" Shield Knight murmured quietly as she looked up to the sky. "One day, when I'm able to scale the ranks of the Order of the Shield, I hope to be an inspiration for the women of my community to sign up. It's not impossible"

"You are an inspiration, my fellow knight" I applauded. Shield Knight was very vocal of her gender, and her views were considered very modern in terms of gender equality. Thankfully, I was raised in a very socially modern family myself, therefore I agreed with every word she said. Even if she was annoying in the day. "I am certain you will make a good role model; however you have a long way to go. Remember, you are my protégé"

Shield Knight begun to snigger to herself. "Keep dreaming" she said to me, a slight hint offence in her voice. "I may be newer to this than you, but I can hold my own. I've been practicing with shields since I was a little girl"

It wasn't because she was a girl that I felt more superior; I just am, I suppose. However, to mould this young knight in my image was a tasty prospect. To hear her boast about besting me in combat was laughable. Laughable, I say!

"We shall see about that" I replied.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

To this point, our relationship was wavy, yet relatively mild. Our fireside chats really helped to establish a friendship, but it fluctuated. Some days, I genuinely felt the need to help her when she was in trouble. Other days, I really couldn't care less. I suppose our personalities clashed; her independence with my wisdom. As such, even though we became friendlier as the nights went on, there was always a little frostiness, a little uncertainty you could say, that meant that we were never truly close. The Order of the Shovel would not approve of such a thing; companion knights needed to know each other inside and out if they were to work well in tandem (as was constantly drilled to me in my lectures prior to this pairing-up trial).

Putting it simply, we were just friends. And not even great friends at that. We tolerated each other and had the minimum amount of appreciation for each other's lives to be able to cooperate. Little did I know, something hidden was brewing inside me, and it decided to show its face that night.

* * *

The campfire was beginning to die down. It was not one of my best; the heat was quickly dissipating and I knew that I would have to drift to sleep soon before the heat faded completely. Trying to slumber on a cold night was impossible, as I learnt the hard way. The same applied for Shield Knight; her crankiness was incredible the following morning when my campfire was not at its best. On this particular night, I had rolled myself a log towards the fading embers and leant myself against it in my usual comfortable position. Half-sitting, half-lying, I watched as Shield Knight positioned herself in a lying position at the opposite side of the campfire, readying herself also for sleep. There was a faint warmth from the campsite and I allowed myself to relax.

I closed my eyes.

 _…drip…_

A faint pattering sound collided against my helmet. Had a dastardly bird relieved itself against my blue hues? Was I an easy target?

No. The projectile was for too small. So small in fact, that I paid it no heed and closed my eyes again. The wind blew gently against us, bringing a glowing pulse to the campfire.

 _…drip…drip…_

This was no mere bird. No, I thought, this is something else. The dripping continued to patter against my helmet, and before long it also struck my breastplate a shoulder plates. I sighed. I knew just what was coming.

Rain.

The rain started to double and triple up in intensity, before it came falling down at rather an incredible rate. My heart sunk as I peered outside my helmet visor to see the rain tearing my beautiful campfire to shreds. Within the minute, the fires and embers had hissed out into soggy ashes, and only the faint, faint light of the few visible stars gave me the vision to see through the darkness. Disheartened that my campfire and warmth was gone, I had no choice but to rest against my log and stare into the darkness, hoping that the rain would subside. I was no stranger to night rain, but I hated it each and every time. The few surrounding trees offered little shelter for me.

My eyes became accustomed to the darkness and I was able to make out the moving shapes beyond my visor. I could see Shield Knight, who had quickly produced a lantern and lit it, restoring light to our sodden resting place. Impressed that she had even brought a lantern, I remained still and watched her.

She fumbled around on the ground, angry that the rain had come. Her long, blonde hair had already become wet and was leaking out of her helmet, falling in slimy, clumpy bands of gold, dripping and sticking to her neck and armor. Her face was one of punctuated annoyance. She grabbed her small shield and set the lantern under it, balancing the two against each other so the shield was able to block out enough rain to keep the lantern alight.

Shield Knight then reached out for her larger shield, which until recently had been lying opposite her. I needed to remind myself to tell her that leaving her weapons unattended to lead to grave consequences (I've lost many a practice shovel due to ill discipline myself). As she grabbed it, she tried to dig it into the ground at an angle, positioning it against the direction of the falling rain. At first, I was confused as to why she was doing this, but I quickly realized she was trying to create a makeshift shelter for herself.

But she couldn't quite manage it, unfortunately. Every time she got under, the shield slipped and started falling on her. Sighing, she repositioned her shield and fiddled with it, digging it in again, seeing it fall, and so forth. She fumbled about with it in an attempt to make her shelter work. It wasn't working. At one point, she managed to get it to stay somewhat still, but it kept falling loose from it's foundation. I watched Shield Knight try different sleeping positions with various limbs wedged under the shield to keep it upright. None worked. I watched for what must have been a good twenty minutes.

Eventually, a clearly frustrated Shield Knight let out a yell and kicked the ground in fury. The rain wasn't letting up; it had seeped into my armor and soaked me to the bone. I could only imagine that she was just as rain-sodden as I was. I continued to watch as the bleak light from her lantern illuminated her despair. Eventually she gave up, and just sat under her shield and held it up with her hand. She was successfully remaining dry, but with her arm in such an awkward position, she was in no shape to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

I was a little callous in my treatment of her back then, I do admit. I could have tried to help her, but instead I found myself just watching her struggle. I felt that she would learn some sort of silly lesson from it all, and when I remember myself just sitting there, like a drowned rat, watching as she despaired over the shelter…

It's not very comfortable to recall.

But I saw something afterwards that changed the way I saw Shield Knight.

* * *

She remained perfectly still for a while, and as I continued to look, nothing changed. The rain didn't change either. I started to resign myself to the fact that she was actually going to be stubborn enough to hold up her shield all night in a futile attempt for shelter. Of course, her large shield was big enough to shelter her (and possible one other with some tactical fitting). It annoyed me to see such stubbornness and I decided to close my eyes and hope that perhaps exhaustion would bring me to sleep.

I heard a sniff, to which I ignored. More sniffing, still ignored. And then a sob.

I opened my eyes and Shield Knight's face was reddening, her gaze set towards the broken campfire. She quivered and her head doubled up slightly every time she let out a large sniff. I continued to watch as she wiped her nose and her eyes, but she lost her composure very quickly. She brought her spare hand to her eyes and her mouth twisted into a painful frown. She started to cry.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing! What happened? Why was Shield Knight so upset? Was it the rain? No, I thought to myself; if the rain was making her cry then there was no way the Order of the Shield would let her become a knight! We weren't allowed to show our weaknesses so openly! How could she cry in front of me like this? It wasn't befitting of a knight to cry, I thought. This girl has a lot to learn.

Then it hit me. I quickly realised that she didn't know I was awake. I had been deathly still the entire time, the most logical conclusion was that she believed me to be asleep.

It changed what I saw entirely. Before, I was witnessing a moment of weakness, something that would eventually have to be kept secret between us and put another awkward wedge in our companionship. But viewing it from a different angle, with Shield Knight believing herself to be alone, and I no longer saw weakness. This wasn't because of the rain. The entire month we had been together, undertaking missions for our Orders and adventuring, she was always troubled by something, or angry. The fact that she was one of the only women in her entire Order, and an anomaly in the eyes of her male counterparts. That I always subtly belittled her by referring to her as my 'protégé', despite her promising skills in combat. All this time, she had been dealing with so much, including the general stress and displacement that comes with adventuring. You'll be surprised to know that it isn't always a joy to serve the Orders we were aligned with.

I saw a woman at her wits end, drenched to the bone, physically tired and uncomfortable, and mentally pained. I admit I have cried in stressful times as well, and I could understand Shield Knight's desires to keep it secret. I realise, looking back, that having a good companion by my side would have made all of my tearful moments far easier to deal with. And here I was, watching this girl break down in front of me, and I wasn't helping her at all.

You know that feeling when your heart swells a little, with a nervous prospect? I had that feeling. I knew that if I was going to be this knight's companion, it would be more than just physically aiding her in battle. Us knights have to be there for each other emotionally as well. Surely, this was the whole point of this new pairing system?

I slowly shifted and stood up to my feet, the rain pattering against my armour. Shield Knight yelped suddenly as she saw me move.

"Sh-Shovel Knight!" she stammered, quickly wiping her reddened eyes and trying to remain natural. I didn't say anything in return, and after a few seconds. Shield Knight realised I had seen her weeping. Her head sunk in shame and she couldn't bear to look at me. That hurt me. I reached down for my shovel and slowly walked to her, holding my shovel limply in my hand. I stood still for awhile and looked at the defeated Shield Knight. Her raised arm was quivering slightly from holding up the heavy weight of the shield.

I grabbed the top rim of the shield and lifted it slightly. Shield Knight looked up at me, her face wet from tears and rain. Hers was a look of confusion, as if she didn't know what I was trying to do. I felt no need to speak words. My gesture would make things very clear. With my shovel hand, it thrust the shovel into the ground at an incline, digging it deeply and firmly into the wet soil. Then, with careful hands, I positioned the handle of the shovel just correctly so the shield would lean against it. After some gentle noodling with the shovel and shield, I let go of both and stood back, tense that the whole thing would collapse on top of her.

The shovel held up the shield well, and for a few seconds nothing changed. A few seconds seems to be enough, and as soon as Shield Knight let her freed arm drop, we both watched as the makeshift structure held itself.

Without another word, I grabbed Shield Knight's warm lantern and small shield, and dragged it underneath the new shelter, before sitting down myself. The ground was still soggy, and both Shield Knight and I could barely fit under the shelter…but it worked. The rain no longer pattered against my armour, and Shield Knight's arms were both freed.

She continued to look at me, still confused, but calmer. I looked at her briefly, but unfortunately I had such little energy to do much that I gently (and promptly) slumped against the floor and started to fall asleep. The rain still hit my feet, but the lantern provided a very welcome warmth. My eyes glazed over and closed and I begun to drift away. It felt amazing. But what I felt next was the moment when I knew things were changing between us.

I felt Shield Knight shuffling up behind me, matching my posture on the floor. Usually I was not used to people cuddling up against me so closely, however I understood the shelter had little space to ward away the rain, so I ignored whatever romantic sentiments that may have accompanied Shield Knight's 'spooning' of me, as it were. Despite it…I enjoyed how close we were that night. We slept like children, and for the first time in my active service (and probably her first time as well), we woke up far later than we intended to. And the gentle feeling of her armour pressing against mine gave me a sense of security and comfort that I seldom had when I travelled alone. For the first time, it truly felt as if we were looking out for each other, keeping each other warm and safe.

We were finally being true companions to each other. And dare I say...a seed was planted that night. Our beautiful little tree of love would one day sprout and grow to what it is today.

* * *

Our mission was a success and we safely rescued the knights whom the Orders were concerned with. But the mission didn't matter to me at that point. Ever since we shared that night under her shield, things between us changed. Shield Knight started to smile a lot more, a sight that was more than welcome after so much scowling in the past. Our daytime conversations were less concerned with arguments and gamesmanship, and the pleasantness of our campfire conversations rose exponentially. The pairing was deemed a success by our Orders and we were sent on more missions together. And yes, when it rained, we spooned under her big shield (I must say I am getting more fond of that word). Although neither of us at the time wanted to acknowledge it ('sorry, but this is just business' she always said prior to our sleep), those rainy nights fast became a guilty pleasure.

We became fast friends and great companions, and today, we are even more. I am Shield Knight's beloved, and she is mine. Sometimes, all it takes is to see another side of a person before you can truly begin to appreciate a person. Personally, I will always remember that first rainy night as the pivotal moment when our companionship changed. Like I said, I was always close to Mother Nature; maybe the rain she brought was her way of saying 'thanks'.

Wait a second; you want to know about our first kiss?

Well, that's another story entirely!

 **Well, hope you enjoyed it! I recently bought Shovel Knight for my 3DS and thoroughly enjoyed the game, I feel that there is so much potential for fleshing out the backstories of the characters and it's great fun to write! I also wrote** _ **Catch Her**_ **, my first Shovel Knight fanfic, and this one that you've just read sort of works as a prequel to that. I intend to write maybe one or two more fics to turn all my Shovel Knight fanfics into a story arc of some kind, so watch this space! Don't forget to check out my other stuff and have a nice day!**


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